Surrender to the heavenly pull

Ebert once reviewed a film with the following statement:

This movie clearly does not give one fiftieth of a damn what anyone thinks of its methods. It knows what it is and what it wants to do and commits to its singular vision from start to finish. It’s a movie that only one man could have directed with such unabashed imagination, his best work in at least ten years, and a culmination of tendencies we’ve seen percolating in his work since his debut as a filmmaker.

There isn’t a creator alive who wouldn’t want to have their work thought about in that kind of way. Because deep down, most artists believe that the commitment to their work supersedes the content of it. That the sovereignty they have over their process is more compelling that what it ultimately produces.

But sadly, we don’t live in a world that puts value on that kind of thing. People want whatever product will yield the most dramatic and immediate results. And if they don’t get that from you, they will try to make you feel ashamed and embarrassed and inadequate about this journey that you have given your life to.

How dare anybody criticize a creative that’s ours, that belongs to us?

Now, this doesn’t make those people fools and haters and shills. They only believe what they believe because they have never had a chance not to believe it. And that’s not their fault. We can’t allow those voices to bulldoze us, nor to spend too much energy building a fortress against them.

Our job is to make things. To hold both our creative vision and our current reality in our minds, and to surrender to that heavenly pull which comes from feeling the true distance between the two.

When it comes to our art, it’s not unreasonable to want everything our way and on our own terms. In this chaotic and incomprehensible world, that might be one of the few freedoms that we have as human beings that cannot be taken away from us.

Welles once said that his last film was the one project where he had total control. Where the studio couldn’t touch a frame. And that film was ultimately considered by many critics, colleagues and fans to be the greatest movie ever made.

Proving, that creative visions are worth fighting for. No need to spend our lives making someone else’s dreams.

How are you expanding your own capacity to hold and seek a creative vision?